Monday, June 9, 2014

Today's Daily Designer.....Meryl Bartho Designs!

Tell Us a Story.....

Looking around now it is very hard to even
imagine a time when digi-scrapping stores did not exist – believe it or not,
there was just such a time, & at the risk of really aging myself, I will
admit that I was around at just such a time and digi-scrapping all the same.

It was back in 2002, after our eldest daughter’s
wedding that for me the whole wonderful digital scrapbooking process began. The
professional photographer produced a beautiful album, but I remember thinking –
there is more to it than this, what about the story of our searching out the
perfect dress, exactly the right venue for the reception, the kitchen tea, all
so much part of the story. I pondered it for a while, and coincidentally a
friend came back from a holiday in Australia with paper scrapbooking supplies
and pages she had made of her trip. I knew right away that this was exactly
what I had been imagining! It was not long that reality hit though – first she
had bought all that in Australia, there were no supplies in South Africa at
that time, and I quickly realized that being the kind of person that I am it
would NOT have taken long to have all the bits and bobs involved with paper
scrapbooking, all over the house – there had to be an easier way!

I started Googling scrapbooking and for some
reason must have added “digital” to my search and then I found there were folk
out there doing exactly what I had in my head – putting pages together without
all the mess and clutter! From then on I was determined…… I pestered dh about
Photoshop (about which I had NO clue! And in fact I was decidedly computer
illiterate!) and he got me a copy of Photoshop 6, really to keep me quiet,
being quite sure that it would all “blow over” but I was now on a mission to
learn all I could – I worked through any and every tutorial I could find until
at least I could open a blank document and add photos….. Those early pages were
very, very basic – flood filled backgrounds (oh the excitement when I found I
could add texture with the texturizing filter!) and clip art embellishments,
but my joy had no bounds! I discovered a
teeny, tiny site where we shared our pages, all creating from scratch any and
everything we needed for our pages.

Fast track to 2004 – I was asked to be a
moderator on the “soon to be opened” digitalscrapbookplace.com, and then later
that year invited to be a designer. What
a wonderful journey it has been to date! Sadly digitalscrapbookplace has just
been closed, but the next exciting part of the journey has just begun with
making my home at My Memories!

I love designing, and love creating
scrapbooks for the family – what a joy it is to see them pouring over the pages
being reminded of times happy and sad. One of my goals has been to create an
album of our family history – this I am happy to say is almost complete!